Modern fishing rods are assembled in a multi-step process beginning with provision of a rod blank, which is a tapered core to which a suite of specialty parts are sequentially assembled. These parts include line guides, tops and tips, reel seats, trolling butts, grips, sleeves and tapes, hook keepers, butts and caps, gimbals and end plugs, to name the main ones.
Modern rod blanks are made of carbon, fiberglass or other fiber composites, that is carbon fibers embedded in a cured polyester or epoxy core. The resulting finished blanks are very smooth and taper continuously from the butt to the tip. Closer to the butt end, a reel seat must be secured to the blank. Since the blank is tapered, one solution has been to wrap masking tape around the blank until an annulus of suitable thickness is built up on which the reel seat assembly may be secured. This is a very time consuming and difficult procedure, and one that must be done with great care so that the built up tape annulus is the proper diameter and precisely located. One disadvantage is that the tape is of uniform thickness, so that the taper of the blank at that spot is replicated on the exterior surface of the tape annulus. A more serious disadvantage is that the tape has a short life, and is adversely affected by water or water vapor infiltrating into the layers during use. The annulus will degrade and the reel seat will loosen, making the rod unusable.
When using masking tape to create a built-up spacer for the reel seat, many windings of the tape are required to build up to the diameter needed for the reel seat. This is slow and labor intensive. The rod builder must ensure the tape is completely covered in epoxy; if it is not, then water will enter and eventually soak the tape. As a result the tape becomes first soggy and soon breaks down into mush. The reel seat becomes loose, mis-aligned (cockeyed) or detaches from the blank, resulting in a rod that cannot be used. To fix the problem, the rod must be disassembled and a new reel seat mounted on the blank. Rod repair is very expensive in time and cost.
Another solution has been to use a foam arbor. These are longitudinally elongated donuts having a constant diameter bore. It is very rare that the I.D. of the foam arbor bore is exactly the correct dimension to permit placing the reel seat at the correct location along the tapered blank. To size the bore of the foam arbor, current practice is to ream it out so that the I.D. of the arbor more closely matches the O.D. of the blank measured at the correct location along the length of the blank, This process is time consuming. Over-reaming is the norm, resulting in an arbor that is too loose to be used. The reaming process must be repeated on a new arbor. In addition, since the arbors have a longitudinal length, an arbor that fits snug facing the butt will be loose facing the tip due to the taper of the blank.
Further, during the reaming process, the I.D. of the bore easily becomes off-center in relation to the outside diameter, as this type of arbor is made of foam material. If an off-center-bored arbor is used to mount a reel seat, it results in an off-center seat, which has a negative effect on the performance of the finished fishing rod. A minor mistake early in the construction process is magnified in the end-product, leading to many “seconds” and reject rods.
Finally, there are some 15,000 to 20,000 differently tapered blanks available to the trade, each having a different taper along their length. Thus, arbor fitting is a one-of a kind process, dictated by the blank specifications.
Accordingly, there is an unmet need in the art to provide an arbor that is universal, that is, it accommodates a wide number of different blank tapers, has a bore that itself can taper, and is water resistant, thereby providing a more secure, permanent bushing for a reel seat.